Good at some things

It's great to be good at things. Fixing and refixing your car, custom jobs, alterations and improvements. Rides clean and pimped to perfection. Round here we kind of sketchy on that type of detailed work, kind of lazy in some ways and not really as creative and artistically inclined as the many great design exponents and engineers of these motoring masterpieces. They remain admired from afar while my car is used with the dull regularity of a washing machine, freezer or microwave. I had denied the car soul and personality; this is mainly due to lack of funds, skill, resources and time. That's it then - but there is a special relationship that I can't quite define...

This motor clearly has soul and personality.

Bit of a city

"Hello world" says the sign, hello from a place outside of Birmingham, a city in England, a country in the UK and part of Europe. People regularly come to this spot from all over Birmingham in order to leave it, it's that kind of place but not, despite the behaviours exhibited here a bad place. It is simply Birmingham and this is view from inside the airport towards what is out. For some reason would be air passengers casually abandon drinks bottles here, there and everywhere in the airport. That's because bottles from Birmingham cannot be brought into the airport and taken on aircraft, it's against the rules. Fair enough.

Glasgow Mission City

I was in Glasgow, just driving around, looking up at the buildings, looking down at the ground.

Cities are fine for short periods but who would want to stay there? They are primarily designed for business, pleasure, commerce and litter and diseases. Not much else survives apart from stray cats and saxophone tunes riding on the warm breeze or cold fumes. That's what cities are mostly about. I caught a lot of shoppers, office workers and deadbeats, every one's face seemed stuck somewhere else, pointed down and set to avoid eye contact. people walked and crossed to the drum beat of a traffic sound scape and the flash of lights. Occasion rain seemed to scare them as they were lured into some eatery or other by the deep smells of onions, garlic, cooking oils and prices and menus written in chalk on boards. Today I wasn't so hungry, it just wasn't for me. I got back into the car, the short walk and the free parking were enough. I headed out and home.

Through the past darkly

Cougar snapped through the net curtains of a borders hotel room. Not often you get your car almost in the room beside you, not that I'd really want that to happen. We had a nice sat nav inspired run across single track roads and quiet country glens, the fence posts, sheep and hillsides drifting past until we reached our destination. Then, next day back home via busier, normal roads all the way home.

Hidden in there

Somewhere in the finely sculpted side panels of a CRV is the gloomy reflection of a Cougar parked alongside at Dalmeny Station. Ways of seeing, ways of not seeing, ways of looking and ways of ignoring altogether. I like the idea of car reflections, reflected in other cars. All I need to do is park next to some nice, clean and shiny vehicles and then snap.

Music in cars

Games for May and music in cars. The Piper at the Gates of Dawn cannot ever be described as a decent album for motoring or cruising to. It would only work if you were travelling across some corrugated field, driving under the influence in Barcelona or being help captive, perhaps after being kidnapped and lying across the back seat looking up at the roof as you headed for some mystery destination. It doesn’t work at all as a motoring album, short on anthems, heavy beats or relentless shredding and screaming. Forever Changes by Love is the same, all too spiky, intense and filled with gear changes and fits of dynamic passion. Classic but no use to the casual motorist wanting to while away the journey beating drumbeats onto a warm steering wheel or worse whistling, humming or tap tap tapping like some Edgar Allan Poe chisel beaked raven. Then again Piper and Changes might keep those annoying relatives or flotsam us human cargo passengers stunned into meek and obedient silence, until the next service stop. Music can have it’s uses, some people even listen to it I am told.